Backtalk

Cable Industry Loses Brantlinger Bob Brantlinger, who retired from Budco in 2001 after eight years of service, passed away in late July. Brantlinger worked in the cable industry for 20 years, including stops at Lemco Tool and Cable Services. "He always had a smile and a kind word for anyone he met," says Budco’s Steve Allen. "Bob will be dearly missed by us all, but the gift of his memory we will hold fast in our hearts." LETTERS This is a response to a question in CT’s Pipeline on disaster preparedness. Train, Drill and Learn The article mentioned first aid kits; more importantly, let us send our staff to the Red Cross or others to teach them CPR and first Aid. The next item would be to drill the staff so that they know what to expect in a big mess. In grammar school, we all took part in a fire drill once a month. This is no different. After the drill, get feedback from the staff, ask them what is missing, what we can improve. They might just tell you that two rolls of toilet paper is not enough, or we need five cases of bottled water in the storeroom. If I am supposed to sleep here, where is my bed? Do we have towels by the emergency shower so I can shower? (For those that have chemicals nearby) Safely yours, Rich Gillard, CUSA R. A. Gillard & Associates People Digeo Hires new CEO, COO from Sony Digeo recently announced that Mike Fidler has been named CEO of the company. Fidler came to Digeo from Sony, where he served in several key leadership positions, most recently as senior vice president of Sony Electronics’ Home Products Division. In this role, Fidler led Sony’s largest business group and was responsible for marketing TV sets, home audio/video and both IT and professional displays, with a specific focus on HDTV and set-top boxes. Digeo also named Greg Gudorf as president and COO. Gudorf will oversee Digeo’s day-to-day operations, with an emphasis on process improvement, product delivery and integration with cable operators’ headend systems. Prior to joining Digeo, Gudorf was vice president of television marketing at Sony. Entone hires Pierce Entone Technologies has hired Jeff Pierce as the head of the company’s cable sales in North America. Prior to joining Entone, Pierce was sales director at N2 Broadband, which is now owned by Tandberg Television. While at N2, Pierce added Cox, Charter, Adelphia and several independent operators to the company’s client list. He also served as the senior director of national accounts for Motorola, where he led a sales team that was responsible for the entire General Instrument line of products. Van Peenan joins Tollgrade Peter J. Van Peenen has joined Tollgrade Communications as vice president, cable marketing and sales. Van Peenan will be responsible for defining and executing Tollgrade’s cable product strategy—from concept and product development, to market launch and customer promotion, to service maintenance. Over the past few years, he worked with Verizon on a large fiber-to-the premises (FTTP) project as an independent consultant. Prior to that, he managed various product lines for Acterna’s cable networks division and was involved in the development of its voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) software.